Starbucks has appointed the former Adobe Systems Inc. chief information officer — honored this June by Silicon Valley Business Journal — as the Seattle coffee company's new chief technology officer.
Gerri Martin-Flickinger will lead global information technology and "play a key role in shaping the technology agenda across the Starbucks business," the company said in a release on Tuesday.
At its 2015 Bay Area CIOs event in June, the Silicon Valley Business Journal honored Martin-Flickinger with the Judge's Choice Award for her role in transforming Adobe into a successful cloud-based services company.
Martin-Flickinger, named one of the 25 smartest women on Twitter in 2015 (NYSE: TWTR), comes to Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) from San Jose-based Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), where she oversaw the global information technology team.
Starbucks is eyeing gains from her experience with cloud, mobile, security and Big Data analytics, which Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson said were key tools to help take Starbucks "to the next level."
Martin-Flickinger will report to Johnson and serve as a member of Starbucks' leadership team.
Johnson flagged up her experience in Silicon Valley, as well as her 30-year track record of success in using technology to drive business, in the release.
This comes as Starbucks gets deeper into its technological offerings to customers. The company plans to launch its mobile ordering feature, Mobile Order & Pay, in the United Kingdom on Oct. 1, the greater Toronto area on Oct. 13, and it plans to expand it to other Canadian cities next year.
The company has been hiring so many tech workers in Seattle, it's basically becoming a tech company as much as a coffee retailer.
"The Pacific Northwest is where I was raised, so I am pleased to be returning there. I am thrilled to be joining the strong team already in place at Starbucks,” Martin-Flickinger said.
Before joining Adobe, Martin-Flickinger was an executive with VeriSign, where she oversaw corporate information technology services for the company's 60 offices worldwide. Prior to VeriSign, she was an executive at Network Associates Inc. and McAfee Associates, Inc. Before that, she held several senior systems roles at Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX).
